I wanted to create a keepsake that reminded me of my lovely maternal grandmother as she and I would sew or craft quite a bit whenever we were together. She had an old Singer sewing machine I just loved to use. We spent a lot of wonderful days together sewing stuffed frogs for the church bazaar, crocheting, etc.
I used Tim's doily and dress form dies for the main part of this project. I cut the dress form out twice from brown card stock and glued the two pieces together for added strength. I also cut one from Sticky Back Canvas and cut the top and the bottom off, adhering it to the card stock dress form.
The patterned paper I used for my base is an old "pattern" design sheet from Basic Gray. The strips on the side are from Kaisercraft as well as the Bingo card and the "Cherished Memories " paper ephemera piece at the top.
I now decided to decorate the dress form. I used a lovely photo of my grandmother that I cut to fit inside one of Tim Holtz's Idea-olgy Cameo Frames and adhered it inside. I then got into my fabulous stash of ephemera from Creative Impressions and found some measuring tape twill along with a small safety pin, a Country Heart and some mini ball chain in silver. I began by creating a necklace with the ball chain and connector and adhering this to the back of the dress form so that it wouldn't move around too much.
I then cut a length of measuring tape twill, folded it so that it would fit on the dress form's waist and used matte medium to glue it not only along my folds but also on the waist. Then I positioned the
with Grandma's photo over the top, hiding the folds.
The Basic Grey patterned paper and the Kaisercraft paper strips were adhered to a back panel.
I cut Tim's Sizziz Thinlits Doily die from cream card stock and added some Vintage Photo Distress ink to "age" the doily.
For the "sewing" part of this piece, I used a template from Paper Pizazz with different stitches on it to draw in straight stitches along the area where the two different papers were attached. I then used some Creative Impressions Baker's Twine to stick along the "seams" by hand. I really like the way this turned out!
I added another burgundy layer of card stock and one last black layer to finish the base.
Next I added the dress form to the piece and finished decorating it with some paper flowers and Creative Impressions safety pin and Country Heart.
Now I'm thinking this may have happened to you at one point as well. Are you lucky enough to have a friend whose "stash" is as big as yours?" Well, I made a trip to my friend Michelle's house to see what she had. Lo and behold she not only had that perfect paper for creating the side strips, but she also had this fabulous wooden disk with a hole in the center, paper to punch to made it look like the side of a thread spool and a bingo paper ephemera piece from Kaisercraft that were perfect! Yay!
I also added some more paper flowers to the the upper portion of the piece as well along with some lovely lace along the top and bottom.
Now to finish it...I decided to use one of Tim's Idea-ology Display Hangars for displaying the large tag. Michelle also had this perfect oval paper ephemera piece that expressed the perfect sentiment. She had the idea to put it in the center of the hangar. Love it!
I added a beautiful bow made from Creative Impressions Crepe Ribbon and I was done. It's not hanging in my studio as a wonderful reminder of happy times with Grandma!
Now let's see what you come up with for "You've got me in Stitches" This is a broad topic, so I know you will easily have a great project to share with us. Make sure to return to our main site at
www.creativecartebanche.com and use the Inlinkz upload to show us your wonderful work! Can't wait to see it!
Susan